Archiv für März 2015

Ermittlung der Empirie. Zu Ernst Machs Methode des Gedankenexperiments

Investigation of Empiricism. On Ernst Mach’s Conception of the Thought Experiment. The paper argues that Ernst Mach’s conception of the thought experiment from 1897/1905 holds a singular position in the lively discussions and repeated theorizations that have continued up to the present in relation to this procedure. Mach derives the thought experiment from scientific practice, and does not oppose it to the physical experiment, but, on the contrary, endows it with a robust relation to the facts. For Mach, the thought experiment is a reliable means of determining empiricism, and at the same time a real, because open and unbiased, experimenting. To shed light on this approach, the paper carries out a close reading of the relevant texts in Mach’s body of writings (in their different stages of revision) and proceeds in three steps: first, Mach’s processual understanding of science will be presented, which also characterizes his research and publication practice (I. ‘Aperçu’ and ‘Sketch’. Science as Process and Projection); then in a second step the physiological and biological justification and valorization of memory and association will be examined with which Mach limits the relevance of categories such as consciousness and will (II. The Biology of Consciousness. Or The Polyp Colony); against this background, thirdly, the specific empiricism can be revealed that Mach inscribes into the thought experiment by on the one hand founding it in the memory and association, and on the other by tracing it back to geometry, which he deploys as an experimenting oriented to experience (III. Thinking and Experience. The Thought Experiment).

Gedankenexperimente im ökonomischen Überschuss. Wissenschaft und Ökonomie bei Ernst Mach

Thought Experiments of Economic Surplus: Science and Economy in Ernst Mach’s Epistemology. Thought experiments are an important element in Ernst Mach’s epistemology: They facilitate amplifying our knowledge by experimenting with thoughts; they thus exceed the empirical experience and suspend the quest for immediate utility. In an economical perspective, Mach suggested that thought experiments depended on the production of an economic surplus based on the division of labor relieving the struggle for survival of the individual. Thus, as frequently emphasized, in Mach’s epistemology, not only the ‘economy of thought’ is an important feature; instead, also the socioeconomic conditions of science play a decisive role. The paper discusses the mental and social economic aspects of experimental thinking in Mach’s epistemology and examines those within the contemporary evolutionary, physiological, and economic contexts.

The Great Powers and the International System: Systemic Theory in Empirical Perspective, by Bear F. Braumoeller

Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/130/542/258?rss=1

How Labour Governments Fall: From Ramsay MacDonald to Gordon Brown, ed. Timothy Heppell and Kevin Theakston

Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/130/542/253?rss=1

Conservatism for the Democratic Age: Conservative Cultures and the Challenge of Mass Politics in Early Twentieth Century England, by David Thackeray

Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/130/542/232?rss=1

The Clergy in Khaki: New Perspectives on British Army Chaplaincy in the First World War, ed. Michael Snape and Edward Madigan

Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/130/542/234?rss=1

‚She Said She Was in the Family Way‘: Pregnancy and Infancy in Modern Ireland, ed. Elaine Farrell

Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/130/542/235?rss=1

The Spanish Second Republic Revisited: From Democratic Hopes to Civil War (1931-1936), ed. Manuel Alvarez Tardio and Fernando del Rey Reguillo

Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/130/542/237?rss=1

Exhuming Loss: Memory, Materiality and Mass Graves of the Spanish Civil War, by Layla Renshaw

Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/130/542/239?rss=1

Cosmo Lang: Archbishop in War and Crisis, by Robert Beaken

Quelle: http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/130/542/241?rss=1